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German Colonies in the Pacific

Germans first became active as traders in the Pacific in the mid-nineteenth century. The Hamburg firm of J.C. Godeffroy & Sohn established a trading base in Samoa in 1857 and ten years later it laid out its first copra plantation. By 1879 their cotton and copra plantations covered an area of 4337 acres and employed 1210 labourers, mostly Gilbertese and New Hebrideans. In the 1870s Eduard and Franz Hernsheim established trading bases in the Bismarck Archipelago and the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. Goddefroy went bankrupt in 1879, but its interests survived in the Deutsche Handels- und Plantagen-Gesellschaft der Sűdsee-Inseln zu Hamburg (DHPG). It pressed for German annexation of Samoa in the hope of acquiring forced labour for its plantations. The labour trade was a likely cause of conflict, as Queensland and Fijian trading vessels began to move northwards from the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides to more northerly islands where Hernsheim had its stations and DHPG was recruiting its labour force.

Intent on protecting German trading interests and taking advantage of British diplomatic weaknesses, the German Government annexed Kaiser Wilhelmsland (north eastern New Guinea) and the Bismarck Archipelago (New Britain and New Ireland) in 1884. The Marshall Islands and the northern Solomon Islands (Buka, Bougainville and other islands) were annexed in 1885. From 1885 to 1899 German New Guinea was a protectorate ruled by the Neuguinea Kompagnie. The costs of administering the Marshall Islands, including Nauru, were borne by the DHPG. In 1898 the German Government agreed to take over the administration of New Guinea and a governor was appointed, based at Herbertshöhe (Kokopo) in New Britain. In 1906 the Marshall Islands became an administrative district of New Guinea. In 1910 the capital of the colony was moved to Rabaul.

Samoa was always the centre of German commerce in the Pacific. In 1877, for instance, Germans had 87 per cent of the export trade from Samoa. In 1888 a native uprising under Mata’afa and the ambush of a German naval party led the German consul in Apia to proclaim annexation. Bismarck was aware of British and American treaty rights and from 1889 onwards a tridominium administered Samoa. In 1899 civil war broke out and Mata’afa’s forces gained control of the islands. Germany put pressure on Britain, which was facing problems in South Africa, and the Treaty of Berlin divided Samoa between Germany (the western islands) and the United States, with Britain gaining exclusive rights in Tonga. Wilhelm Solf was appointed the first Governor of Samoa. At the same time, Spain, having lost the Philippines, ceded the Carolines, Palaus and Marianas to Germany in return for a payment. They were made administrative districts of German New Guinea.

The German empire in the Pacific came to a sudden end following the outbreak of World War I in 1914. In August New Zealand troops landed on Samoa and the Germans capitulated without resistance. In German New Guinea there was fighting, but Australian troops gained control in September. They also occupied Nauru. In October Japanese forces occupied the Marshalls and Carolines and the remaining German islands north of the equator.

Acquisition

The 1888 proclamation of the annexation of Nauru by Germany was donated to the Library by Brigadier General Thomas Griffiths, the Administrator of Nauru, in 1921. The extracts from the Grundbuch were transferred by the Administration of the Trust Territory of Nauru in 1958. The papers of A.B. Steinberger formed part of the Ferguson Collection which was received in 1970.

The records of the German Foreign Office and the German Navy were microfilmed by the Australian Joint Copying Project in London in 1956-59. They were at the time in the custody of the Foreign Office and the Admiralty, having been removed from Berlin after World War II. The records of the German Colonial Office held in the Deutsches Zentralarchiv in Postdam were microfilmed in 1969-75 on the initiative of Professor Marjorie Jacobs of Sydney University. Sets were supplied to the National Library and the State Library of New South Wales. Other records, including the papers of Wilhelm Solf, held in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz, were filmed by the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (PMB).

Correspondence and documents of A.B. Steinberger, the United States agent in Samoa, 1874-75. They include a copy of a letter from the Samoan chiefs to the Emperor of Germany and references to German warships visiting Samoa.

Translations by E.Gintz of records of the German administration of Nauru, including its incorporation within the Marshall Islands Protectorate in 1888, economic conditions and relations with natives, 1887-1916

Maps

The Library has a small collection of German maps of its Pacific colonies published in the period 1880-1910. They include two maps of the coast of New Guinea, a map of Samoa showing the possessions of the DHPG (1900), a map of Apia Harbour, and a map by A. Petermann of the western Pacific and Australia showing colonies and steamship routes (1891). In addition, there are several maps of German New Guinea, mostly undated, in the Chinnery Collection.

The microfilm, which totals 262 reels, incorporates most of the Pacific records (class KAIII) of the Reichskolonialamt (Colonial Office), which was formed in 1907, and the earlier colonial records of the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office). They are arranged in subject categories, such as administration, military, naval, trade and shipping, agriculture, labour, missions, exploration and travel, subdivided by particular territories, and then filed chronologically. The principal geographical areas are Samoa, New Guinea and Micronesia (Karolinen), and in later years the Marshall Islands. As well as documenting in great detail the administration and development of the German colonies, the records deal with the events and negotiations that preceded the annexation of New Guinea in 1884 and the diplomatic and military events that led up to the Treaty of Berlin and the annexation of Samoa in 1899.

The Library holds a large number of books published in Germany in the period 1884-1914 dealing with the ethnology, flora and fauna, economic resources, missions and administration of the German colonies in the Pacific. The following are later works on the history of the German colonies:

Kennedy, Paul M., A guide to archival sources relating to Germany in the Pacific and Far East, 1870-1914, in John A. Moses and Paul M. Kennedy, eds., Germany in the Pacific and Far East, 1870-1914, Brisbane, University of Queensland Press, 1977